The 1960’s – From Civil Rights to Black Power

The March on Washington – Highpoint of the Civil Rights Movement

Movements are like the ocean, with waves of high activity and periods of relative calm. The 1960's, like the 1920's before it, represented a wave of high activity in the African American political movement. Most think of the 60’s as the most turbulent period in American history. Some call it the unfinished Black Revolution. In many respects, it was like the Civil War, all over again. African Americans fought for their freedom during the Civil War. At the end of that fight, they got – Reconstruction. However, Post Reconstruction brought about Jim Crow, or American Apartheid – separate, but "equal". Jim Crow was ended by the Civil Rights Movementwhich reached its plateau in the 1960’s. At the heart of the Southern based Civil Rights Movement was the struggle for public accommodations and Voting Rights.

The 1960's movement was not monolithic. The Southern movement was primarily based in the Black Christian church, at the center of which was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). However, another parallel movement developed in the 1960's in the North. That movement was largely Islamic led, most notably by Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam..

The movement in the South believed in non-violence, while the Northern movement practiced unarmed self-defense. As these two movements converged, a third trend began to develop espousing the concept of armed self-defense. This third trend was most notably personified by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and the Black Panther Party.

The shift from Civil Rights to Black Power

By the end of the 1960's, the African American political mass movement had evolved from Civil Rights to Black Power. Key organizations which emerged and played a significant role in aspects of the 1960's movements were: The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the Black Panther Party (BPP).

The young activists of RAM, who had persuaded Malcolm X and Robert F. Williams (in exile in Cuba and China) to become their leaders, had infiltrated both the Civil Rights Movement and Student Movement with their fusion of scientific socialism and Black Nationalism to give birth to the philosophy or ideology of Revolutionary Black Nationalism.

"Before the end of 1964, several SNCC delegations had met with Malcolm. Interrelated was the networking of the Revolutionary Action Movement with third world revolutionaries, civil rights organizations, and other nationalists and the OAAU. The RAM sponsored the direct action Afro-American Student Movement conference on black nationalism May 1, 1964, which was the pivotal point for the student movement. …The convening of the….conference on black nationalism was the ideological catalyst that eventually shifted the civil rights movement into the Black Power Movement” Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford)

Through its COINTELPRO or Counter Intelligence Program, the FBI had encouraged tensions between these Revolutionary Black Nationalists, led by leaders like Max Stanford (Muhammad Ahmad), H. Rap Brown and others, and the Cultural Nationalists, led by Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga and his organization, US. Evidence uncovered later would reveal FBI and secret police roles in the destruction of Black political organizations from that period and, many believe, the assassination of their leaders.

Twenty-two year old Fred Hampton, the dynamic and charismatic leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and over 30 Black Panther leaders and activists were murdered. Dozens more were incarcerated for decades and others forced to flee the country in exile.

Among the prominent political prisoners or so-called US prisoners of war for that period were Elmer Geronimo Pratt (California Panther Party Leader) and Richard Dhoruba Moore (New York Black Panther Party Chairman).

Dhoruba Moore

Geronimo Pratt (left) and his lawyer, Johnnie Cochran

Mystery and intrigue still surround the assassinations of the most prominent political leaders of the 1960's, most notably Malcolm X and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom were COINTELPRO targets. While many questions remain, there are some known facts. Transcripts of official FBI COINTELPRO documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents show that the March 4, 1968 COINTELPRO communique was sent out by J. Edgar Hoover himself just one month before the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The communique specifically identified Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam as primary targets of COINTELPRO, as well as Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Other released FBI documents show the Bureau had agents within Malcolm X's Muslim Mosque, Inc. and in the very room when he was assassinated. One of those agents actually administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Malcolm X as he was dying.

The U.S. Senate's investigation of COINTELPRO uncovered a series of letters forged in the name of an intermediary between the Black Panther Party's national office and Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, in exile in Algeria. The letters proved instrumental in inflaming intra-party rivalries that erupted into a nasty public split that basically destroyed the Party in the winter of 1971. That split led to East Coast and West Coast factions of the Black Panther Party. The leaders of the East coast faction went underground and, it is believed, gave birth to the Black Liberation Army or B.L.A.

New organizations emerged as the sixties transitioned in the 1970's. Many elements from the 1960s converged in Washington DC in 1974 to found African Liberation Day (ALD) and the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC). RAM and elements of the Black Panther Party gave birth to the African Peoples Party (APP). One of SNCC's most prominent and vocal leaders, Stokely Carmichael, changed his name to Kwame Ture and founded the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party. The AAPRP advocated a philosophy very similar to that of Marcus Garvey. Another organization, the African People's Socialist Party also emerged. And, in many large cities Cultural Nationalists organizations emerged, many (like The East, in Brooklyn NY) practicing Kwanzaa and other principles advocated by Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga. Serious students of African American political history should dig further to understand the major forces which caused the mass Black political movement of the 1960's to subside or disintegrate. The resources on this page will help you do so.

A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people … Durham, North Carolina sit-in; 2.4 1958 Wichita and Oklahoma City sit-ins; 2.5 1960 … Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) conducted sit-ins as early as the 1940s.

SNCC grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing … —Julian Bond … Stokely Carmichael and H. "Rap" Brown were chairmen in the late 1960s .

Although Martin Luther King, Jr. and others had hoped that SNCC would … Nevertheless, after the Selma to Montgomery March, Stokely Carmichael and other SNCC … The election in June 1967 of H. ''Rap'' Brown as SNCC's new chair was meant to reduce the controversy surrounding the group. … Bond, Julian ( 1940- ).

Stokely Carmichael, also known as Kwame Ture (June 29, 1941 ….. Bill Ware engaged in a voter drive to promote the candidacy of Julian Bond for the Georgia State …. stepped down as chairman of SNCC and was replaced by H. Rap Brown .

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/rbwstudy.html
To approach a study of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, an independent Black radical workers' formation in Detroit, as a consequence of the Black …

IN BLACK AND WHITE: THE F.B.I. PAPERS Following are transcripts of … Note: in the originally released documents, most of the names of COINTELPRO targets … of black nationalist hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, …

Under the FBI's domestic counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) King … Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) offices in October 1963. … In August 1967, the FBI created a COINTELPRO against ''Black Nationalist–Hate Groups,'' … King was identified as a target because the FBI believed that he could …

COINTELPRO is an acronym for the FBI's Counter Intelligence … and the American Indian Movement were among the program's targets. … Today marks the 45th anniversary of the death of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. … The FBI has added the former Black Panther Assata Shakur to its Most Wanted …

The program was also accused of using assassination against Black Panther members. … In-fighting among Party leadership led to expulsions and defections that …. in an emergent black nationalist tradition inspired by Malcolm X and others. …. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Maxwell Stanford …

RevolutionaryActionMovement : The International …
http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/uid=73/tocnode?id=g9781405184649_chunk_g97814051846491263
Extract. Disgruntled by the ineffectiveness of the peaceful strategy of the early civil rights movement , black college students formed the RevolutionaryAction …

From black power to the assassination of Martin Luther King … by the then recently assassinated black nationalist Malcolm X spawned an increasing … as the Black Panther Party, whose leaders argued that civil rights reforms were insufficient … Martin Luther King, Jr. (centre), with other civil rights supporters at the March on …

Black Like Mao: Red China & Black Revolution, Part 2 …
http://kasamaproject.org/
… spring 1962 and form the Revolutionary Action Committee (originally called the "Reform" Action Movement so as not to scare the administration), with its primary leaders being Freeman, Max Stanford, and Wanda Marshall.

Two years after the assassination of Malcolm X, armed BPP members are …. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, TN …. Panther Raymond Johnson Jr. forces a National Airlines jet to Havana as it was flying from New Orleans to Miami. … Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, leaders of the Southern California BPP …

The Black Freedom Movement, like other historical moments, events and … With the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, the movement … the civil rights movement, using King and other national, male leaders as the defining figures. …. biography of Malcolm X and multimedia research aids to accompany study of …